Because of its nuclear program, if Iran is in the press, the main danger to the well-being of the world is not economic sanctions or the Sunni-Shiite schism. Instead, the biggest threat to Iran may be that water is running out of the region. The problem is so serious that anyone can imagine civil instability, economic dislocation, even migration. Recently, one government advisor forecast that as m m
Water concerns are a metaphor for poor governance, and Iran has an abundance of water problems. Beyond what can be naturally recharged by rain, underground resources have been overpumped and, on the current trajectory, many aquifers will soon be unusable. Iranian agriculture is among the world's most inefficient. Many nations use over 70% of their water for agriculture; Iran uses over 90% of its water for agriculture.
The climate of the Islamic Republic is mainly arid and semi-arid, which, by implication, indicates that it only receives moderate rainfall. It is estimated that more than half of the country's wells have been illegally drilled, and many of them, probably most, are now contaminated. More than two-thirds of all industrial plants do not handle their waste water, and manufacturers, including manufacturers of chemical products, typically dump their waste.
By comparison, Israel, the self-declared enemy of Iran, has perhaps the world's most advanced and effective integrated water management system. Israel itself is 60% desert, has one of the world's fastest growing populations and economies, and markedly less rainfall than the modest amount at its start in 1948. Even, Israel has such an abundance of water now that it exports.
A visitor to Iran will conclude that the Islamic Republic would be wise to transcend its antagonism to Israel and invite Israelis to Iran to help handle its water sector by looking at each of the country's water problems and recognizing that Israel has effectively overcome all of them. As fanciful and almost unimaginable as that sounds, it is precisely what the ruler of Iran, the shah, began slowly in 1960 and.
The head of the Israeli water team, Professor Issar, left Iran on the next-to-last direct flight from Tehran to Tel Aviv in 1979, shortly before the Shah was deposed, albeit not as dramatic as in the hit film Argo. As his car made its way to the airport, he described scenes of decreasing confusion on the streets of the capital. That would be the last of many trips that started as part of a hum for him in 1962
Ancient Persia had a sophisticated water system based on gravity used for irrigation using vertical shafts called qanats that were drilled from an underground water supply to the fields where the water would be required in a slight decrease. A major earthquake struck Qazvin Province, almost one hundred miles northwest of Tehran, in 1962. More than 20,000 Iranians died in three hundred villages,
Israel was invited to send water engineers to Qazvin on an emergency basis, to see whether the Qanats could be rehabilitated. A close inspection showed that, beyond cost-effective repair, they were damaged. In any case, in an age of modern agriculture, what may have been suitable for irrigation in the times of ancient Persia was no longer optimal. Successfully, the Israelis urged government leaders and officials,
Soon after well drilling began in Qazvin, Israeli water engineers received a supportive response from their hosts from the Iranian government to a suggestion that they also be allowed to teach local farmers how to increase their yields while using less water in the process. They extended their experiences with Iranian farmers to provide instructions on growing crops to grow and how to market them. The rest of the sites.
Shmuel was one of the UN's Israeli FAO experts who happened to be in Iran when the earthquake struck at the invitation of the Shah. A geologist and groundwater expert, shortly after the quake he made his way to Qazvin and helped put together a plan for where and how to drill the new wells in the area. He made hundreds of trips to nearly every part of the world over the following seventeen years, and g
Dr. Moshe, an Israeli engineer educated at Cornell University, was another Israeli who spent time in Iran and had similar reflections regarding his relations with his Iranian hosts. He also had only fun, cordial encounters, although he did not develop any lasting relationships. "In their homes, we never socialized with them, but there were warm relationships," he says. To consult with a hydrologist from Iran
Professor Issar, the Israeli in charge of all Iran's water exploration and drilling activities, recalls that Iranian hydrologists who would fly with him were taken to remote corners of the country and introduced to local residents. "They would say I came from Israel to share with them our knowledge," he says. I have always been accepted and invited to a special meal they have hurried to
Generally speaking, the caliber of the Iranian water professionals was not high. "Iran was a poor country then, despite all its oil, and its education system did not properly prepare its water professionals," says Dr. Gab. "Personally, the people assigned to me were very nice, but technologically quite backward and unsophisticated." Professor Issar initiated programs to train hydrologists and technicians.
Iran's friendly approach to its Israeli guests included some unimaginable touches today. In Qazvin, the shopkeepers learned Hebrew to communicate more with their new clients. Dr. Gab recalls that much of his local contacts are in Hebrew with the merchants. In addition, so many Israelis had arrived in Qazvin with their families by the mid to late 1960s, that a local building was transformed into a s
THe also urged Israelis to visit delegations in other fields, and he sent Iranian officers and scientists to Israel. For prolonged times, some Iranian water professionals remained in Israel to study advanced Israeli techniques. There were strong and diverse commercial and political relations between the countries.
"The religious establishment was the only part of Iranian society that we could not penetrate," says Uri, Israel's ambassador to Iran from 1973 until shortly before the Shah was deposed. "Everywhere else, we were accepted. Everyone is either very religious in Iran or they come from a home that was. The Islamic practice was then known even to the Iranian communists. No one made use of religious differences to keep Israelis out of the way.
The initial success of Israeli involvement in Qazvin was spread to several other provinces and areas, notwithstanding the views of Iran's clerical sector. TAHAL (an acronym for the Hebrew word for 'Water Planning for Israel'), an Israeli government-owned water engineering firm, was asked to supervise the construction of water and sewer systems in major Iranian cities such as Isfahan and Bandaran.
Other Israeli-government companies were also invited to Iran in relevant water areas. The Israeli national water utility was asked, among other assignments, to drill for water in Iran, as it had done in Israel, and to operate a large project on the Iranian side of the Caspian Sea. Also employed was an Israeli government-owned company that managed large building projects back in Israel.
IDE, an Israeli government company founded around 1968 to brainstorm desalination concepts, developed an energy-saving breakthrough process, and was eager to test the notion in real-world settings. The Iranian Air Force decided to secure safe, clean water for its bases at around the same time. Professor Arie Issar recalls that Colonel Yaakov, the Israeli military attaché in Tehran, saw this as a
Fredi Lokiec, an IDE senior executive, was at a trade show in Europe in 2007, almost forty years after IDE started building desalination systems in Iran and long after the Islamic Republic had broken all relations with Israel, when he was secretly approached by an Iranian engineer. The Iranian told him that there were still some of those aging Israeli desalination units in use and that Iranian technicians were still in use.Khomeini and his followers organized mass trials of Iranian government officials and others alleged to have been the shah's supporters after the 1979 revolution in Iran. People of the Bahá'í religion were also at risk and abused extensively. There were Iranian friends and colleagues in Iran's water industry, both Arie Issar and Shmuel Aberbach, some of whom were Bahá'í but mostly Muslims, who fled the country.
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